The Gilgo Beach Murder Victims Known as Peaches and Baby Doe Have Been Identified

Since 2010, police have been investigating the deaths of multiple women known as the Gilgo Beach murders. According to the Associated Press, the first body was discovered in 1993, but investigators didn't begin connecting the killings until 17 years later, when four bodies were found in quick succession.

Only then did they begin focusing on other unsolved murders in and around the same area.

In July 2023, Rex Heuermann, a 59-year-old Nassau County resident, was arrested in connection with three of the 10 victims linked to the Gilgo Beach murders.

A little over a year later, in December 2024, Heuermann was charged with the death of a seventh woman, per the AP. Some of the victims found near Gilgo Beach remain unidentified. Two were known only as Peaches and Baby Doe. The former was identified as Tanya Denise Jackson. Here's what we know.

In April 2025, CNN reported that the woman known as Peaches Doe, based on a peach tattoo she had on her body, was actually 26-year-old Tanya Denise Jackson.

When she disappeared, Jackson was living in Brooklyn, N.Y., and was working at a doctor's office, per People. Her daughter, Tatiana Marie Dykes, was 2 years old at the time of her death.

Because Jackson was estranged from her family, no one reported her missing for quite some time. Nassau Police Det. Capt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said Jackson served in the military from 1993 to 1995 and lived on three bases in Texas, Georgia, and Missouri.

She drove a black 1991 Geo Storm. Jackson's remains were found in June 1997. Her body had been stuffed in a tub. The skeletal remains of her daughter were discovered in April 2011 in Babylon, which is 20 miles from Gilgo Beach.

"Although Tanya and Tatiana have commonly been linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killings because the timing and locations of their recovered remains, we are not discounting the possibility that their cases are unrelated from that investigation," said Fitzpatrick. "I’m not saying it is Rex Heuermann and I’m not saying it’s not,” he explained. "We are proceeding as if it’s not, keeping our eyes wide open."

Back in 2022, local police sent the DNA evidence to the FBI, who probably identified the victims then. Unfortunately, law enforcement wasn't able to contact any family members until 2024, when additional DNA samples were provided. The baby's father has spoken with authorities and is cooperating. They do not consider him a suspect. The two were laid to rest, with Jackson receiving full military honors.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly told CNN their work has just begun, saying, "Knowing the identities of the mom and the little baby is just a first step to help us get to solving these murders."

Fitzpatrick said they never gave up on finding justice for Jackson and her daughter. "We’re determined to find the reasons and circumstances that led to their untimely deaths," he said.